Eduard Baltzer encouraged 'natural eating' in the 1860s

Historian Corinna Treitel credits the Protestant minister with inventing the concept of “natural eating” in Nordhausen, Germany, in the 19th century. Baltzer believed that people were consuming excessive amounts of schnapps, sugar, and meat, and that this behavior was having a detrimental impact on their lives. He encouraged a diet mostly of fruits and vegetables, though he was not opposed to food grown with artificial fertilizers.

Listen to how the 1902 'poison squad' experiments changed food safety in America

As part of government research, a group of young men were paid to eat standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—which revealed the dangers of unregulated food. The work was led by the first FDA commissioner, Harvey Wiley, who helped end the "century of the great stomachache."

Trader Joe's hired a college student to advise on health food lingo

The grocer jumped into the 1970s health food movement by selling granola, fresh juice, nuts, and raw milk. Joe Coulombe, the company’s founder and namesake, hired “a young hippie woman” from the University of California at Santa Cruz to teach employees the language of the health food movement to properly label their products.

Health food broke into the mainstream by the 1980s

A 1984 New York Times story noted that Americans were eating less red meat than a decade prior, and that, in general, the country was “talking, thinking and worrying about what they eat to a degree unique in the nation's history.” The feature then details foods that were then considered bizarre: whole-grain muffins, hummus, and a variety of vegetarian dishes. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

How the Great Depression still shapes the way Americans eat

From fortified foods to nutrition labels, the legacy of an early financial crisis lives on in kitchens across the United States. Ethnic foods with their (supposedly) hunger-triggering spices were vilified and considered “stimulants” along the lines of caffeine and so, in their stead came prune puddings, canned-meat stews, and dairy-heavy vegetable casseroles featuring America’s first fortified foods. Read more here.

Dave Asprey is considered one of the fathers of modern biohacking

Entrepreneur Dave Asprey wants to live longer than anyone else, a desire that's led him to biohacking. Asprey relies on supplements, stem cell treatments, rigid dieting, exercise, and more. The inventor of Bulletproof Coffee has no medical or nutritional training, though that's not unusual among biohacking's DIY experimenters.

A look at the foods eaten by astronauts during and after the space race

After John Glenn became the first American to demonstrate that eating in space was possible by eating apple puree out of a tube, meals were prepared for astronauts to meet an approximately 2,800-calorie-a-day requirement via freeze-dried foods. Meal quality gradually improved throughout the Apollo program, including the Apollo 8 crew's nondehydrated Christmas meal in 1968.

Learn the history of food science breakthroughs from the 20th century

Long after humans developed the means to produce sufficient food to feed civilizations, scientific research focused on a wide variety of objectives, such as developing methods to preserve food quality (accomplished via frozen food), speeding up cooking (leading to the microwave), and lowering the cost of sweetening food, which high fructose corn syrup provides.

World War II helped convince food companies to produce more processed foods

Processed foods had existed since the 19th century, but they began infiltrating the mainstream during World War II, with foods designed to last on the battlefield for days. After the war, food companies saw great potential in the relatively cheap foods aimed at busy households. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

How a government chemist founded the FDA—by poisoning people

The Poison Squad tells the story of government chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley who, determined to banish these dangerous substances from dinner tables, took on the powerful food manufacturers and their allies.

Teddy Roosevelt was once given a daily dose of an artificial sweetener, prescribed by his doctor.

Natural food stores began sprouting up in the US in the 1960s and 1970s

Health food stores began opening in the ‘50s, though they were primarily focused on vitamins and holistic supplements. Natural food stores, however, provided pesticide-free produce and often relied on local farmers for their products. One of the first was New Age Natural Foods, in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, which opened in 1965.

Robert Koch won the Nobel for his tuberculosis work, but he also pioneered cholera research

Koch was one of the first scientists to isolate the bacterium that causes cholera while investigating an outbreak in Egypt in 1883. He went on to advise about rules to control cholera outbreaks, which formed the basis of the disease control approaches and water hygiene techniques still used today.

Gypsy Boots was a proto-hippie and health food entrepreneur

The Southern Californian was an eccentric businessman who opened several health food businesses, wrote books on healthy living, and frequently appeared on late-night television, including 28 appearances on “The Steve Allen Show.” He’d also attend Los Angeles area football games and chant “Don’t panic, go organic.”

The birth of the multivitamin

In 1912, biochemist Kazimierz Funk, often anglicized as Casimir Funk, proposed that there existed an essential nutrient in food that could prevent deficiency diseases, such as scurvy or rickets. This article explores the origin of the multivitamin, an invention that has garnished...

Watch how dog kibble is manufactured by blending meats, grains, cereal crops, and corn kernels.

Hippies explored the possibilities of organic food

The 1960s counterculture sought to buck traditions, including culinary ones. Hippies believed that healthier food was integral to dismantling the status quo and, in turn, started health food stores, espoused vegetarian diets, and cultivated organic food, which they found to be a welcome alternative to the over-commercialized farming industry. In the decades since the movement’s decline, many of its practices have been absorbed by the mainstream.

J.I. Rodale helped pioneer organic farming in the US

Rodale began using the term “organic” in the 1940s to describe farming practices that avoided the use of pesticides and chemicals, which he believed were dangerous. Rodale used a 63-acre farm in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, to cultivate organic food and established a magazine, Organic Farming and Gardening, as well as a foundation based on a simple motto: “Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People.”

Steve Jobs tried to treat his cancer with alternative medicine

After Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he reportedly restricted his diet to just fruits or just fruits and vegetables, tried out hydrotherapy, and consulted psychics. There’s compelling evidence about the impact of alternative medicine on cancer patients.

Supplement sales soared during the pandemic, alongside growing distrust of the health establishment, amplifying a trend that endures—even when some of the products don't even work.

The Whole Earth Catalog offered readers tools for healthy eating

The publication promised hippies "access to tools"—listings for "high quality or low cost" books, devices, and instructions for alternative living, including cultivating natural and organic foods. This archive comprises high-definition scans of nearly all materials published between 1968 and 2002.

In the 1920s, Rockwell worked as a commercial illustrator

After getting his start at Boys’ Life, Rockwell began illustrating advertisements for products like Jell-O and Orange Crush. Below is one of Rockwell’s advertisements for Jell-O, from 1923.

The dark side of modern sugar production

Humanity's ancestors evolved to wring more calories from sugary fruits by storing excess sugar as fat, an adaption that's culminated in many peoples' palettes preferring calorie-rich sweet. Now, the desire for sugar has both contributed to a widespread health crisis and been at the center of atrocities around the world.

Silicon Valley startups Orchid, Nucleus, and Genomic Prediction are selling so-called polygenic tests for prospective parents

These tests claim to show how at-risk a hypothetical baby would be for genetic syndromes. The newfound industry has prompted ethical and medical debates, with critics questioning their accuracy and highlighting the potential problems behind pursuing the perfect baby.

Ultra-processed foods are made to maximize cravings and encourage overeating

Often disguised as healthy options like granola bars and low-fat yogurt, these foods silently fuel chronic diseases, despite dominating diets. Reviewing labels for ingredients like stabilizers and emulsifiers can serve as indicators to help identify these products.

The food processing techniques developed for World War II, later repurposed for consumers

Research projects funded or sponsored by the military led to the development of active dry yeast to make bread easier to bake and an improved version of dehydrated cheese, which would be used in powdered cheese snacks. Freeze-drying, which had been used to ease the transport of blood plasma to battlefields, where it would be reconstituted with water, was later used on fruit for cereals.

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson's mission to live forever

Johnson has invested millions of dollars into developing a biohacking program he believes will extend his life beyond typical expectations, relying on medical professionals to reduce his "biological age." Most notably, he drew significant public attention with reports of blood-swapping with his teenage son.

Unpacking Thoreau's diet, which once included a woodchuck

The writer's diet was notoriously simple, preferring an inexpensive combination of rice and vegetables to meat, though he usually ate it when offered. In "Walden," he mentions eating a woodchuck after it got into his beans, which one Thoreau biographer said was likely true.

Inside entrepreneur Bryan Johnson's race to live forever

Created by entrepreneur Bryan Johnson in 2022, the Rejuvenation Olympics asks participants to find ways, including exercise and dietary supplements, to slow their biological aging. But some of these tactics are extreme in cost or nature—such as Johnson's regular injections of blood from his teenage son.

The story of the 1945 Minnesota Starvation Experiment

Amid the severe conditions of World War II, researchers were eager to learn the effects of starvation in a controlled study. This podcast dives into a yearlong study of 36 men at a Minneapolis college who endured a six-month period of semi-starvation, where their caloric intake was halved. Results from the experiment became a landmark study in human starvation.

In June 2026, EU food safety regulators approved sales of a GLP-1-inducing food additive, a change which may lead to 'supercharged' cereals and breads in Europe within a year. (Free w/email.)

Some call Beard the original 'foodie'

James Beard came of age when home cooking revolved around canned and frozen ingredients. Likewise, West Coast cuisine wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Beard’s appreciation of fresh, seasonal ingredients and regional influences provided a foundation for today’s movement toward local, farm-to-table cooking and the foodies who seek it out.

Over the years, the USDA has changed its definitions of healthy eating

The US Department of Agriculture began offering eating advice in 1894 and has updated its guidance as both science and politics have evolved. In the early 20th century, its guidance emphasized recommended minimum servings of important foods; in later decades, its visual guides became more nuanced, illustrating the composition of a healthy diet and encouraging exercise.

The health food industry grew significantly in the early 1990s

By 1996, there were over 6,000 health food stores in the US, which generated over $9B in sales. That was still a small number compared to traditional supermarkets, but it was a 17% improvement in annual growth over the previous five years, highlighting a rapidly growing industry.

'Diet for a Small Planet' popularized the vegetarian diet

Frances Moore Lappe’s 1971 book provided recipes for vegetarian dishes, introducing millions to soy, sprouts, and tofu. It also argued that a vegetarian diet was a political act that could solve world hunger by redirecting food from livestock to humans.

In the early 20th century, 'baby cages' were popular among parents who believed that putting their children in the cold would build their immunity to minor illnesses.

Uncrustables' reinvention of the PB&J

In the 1990s, David Geske and Len Kretchman came up with the ingenious idea to package and mass-produce a crustless version of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This makeover to an American childhood staple resulted in a $1B business. Read this article in Mental Floss to learn more about the origins of the brand Uncrustables and its extraordinary success.

Edward Jenner, the father of vaccinations

The British physician was the first to attempt to inoculate someone from smallpox using its milder cousin, cowpox. His innovations and documentations would prove crucial to the deployment of widespread vaccinations.